Jane
Davenport Fairbank, pioneer for women in physics,
dies

Jane
Davenport Fairbank, a pioneer for women in physics
and longtime member of the Stanford community, died
July 1 in Palo Alto. She was 84.

Fairbank
was an accomplished scientist, editor and devoted
mother. Her decades of community service included
serving as president of the Stanford University
Women's Club and of the Woodside High School PTA and
as a founding member of the Bay Area Consortium on
the Educational Needs of Women.

Born
Jane Davenport on Aug. 21, 1918, in Seattle, Fairbank
graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Whitman College with an
A.B. degree in chemistry and physics and was only the
second woman to do graduate work in physics at the
University of Washington. After the outbreak of World
War II, she and her husband, William Martin Fairbank,
a professor of physics at Stanford who died in 1989,
were invited to leave graduate school and join the
war project to develop ship-borne radar at the MIT
Radiation Laboratory. Fairbank was the second woman
scientist employed at the Radiation Laboratory.

Following
the war, she retired from physics and devoted her
life to her family. "She always maintained that
her sons were her greatest accomplishment," said
her son William Fairbank Jr., who lives in Fort
Collins, Colo.

Fairbank's
third career was as an editor and conference
organizer. She co-edited two volumes of Second
Careers for Women in 1971 and 1975 and Near
Zero, New Frontiers of Physics in 1988 and edited
the Radar Maintenance Manual (2 volumes) in
1945. She was a founder of the Senior Alumni College
at Whitman College in 1985 and organized its program
for about a decade. She received the Gordon Scribner
Award for Distinguished Service to Whitman in 1990.
She had a special interest in the study of
antiquities. With her husband and other friends, she
traveled to many sites of ancient civilizations and
wrote detailed letters describing her experiences.

For many
years she served as the official starter for the
Fairbank Memorial Run/Walk/Bike, held each year in
memory of her late husband.

In
addition to William Jr., Fairbank is survived by a brother,
Harold Edwin Davenport Jr. of Seattle; and two other
sons, Robert Harold of Pacific Palisades, Calif., and
Richard Dana of McLean, Va.; and 13 grandchildren.

A
memorial service will be held on Saturday, July 26,
at 10 a.m. at Ladera Community Church, 3300 Alpine
Road, Portola Valley, Calif. In lieu of flowers, the
family suggests sending remembrances to her sons at
1712 Clearview Court, Fort Collins, CO 80521.
Memorial gifts can be made to the Jane Davenport
Fairbank and Harold and Mildred F. Davenport
endowment fund for the acquisition and maintenance of
science equipment at Whitman College, attn:
Development Office, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, WA
99362, or to the William M. and Jane D. Fairbank
Fund, No. 353F125, for postdoctoral fellowship
support in physics at Stanford University, attn:
Memorial Gifts, 326 Galvez St., Stanford, CA
94305-6105.